The Forgotten Threshold | Page 4

are our brothers.
July 17.
The sunset tonight was a glorious crucifixion after the day of clouds. It was human in its beckoning. I cannot find the secret of the moon, but it reminds me of Lionel's phrase, if it be his, "golden mediocrities." Is it the astral embodiment of "They also serve who only stand and wait"? Why is it that the little human beauties of Nature pass me by as entities, and that I seek bare places? Is there a parallel in my personal attitude toward all but those who are specially dear to me? I thought of how I looked down on the city from the mountain in May, and felt the whole city to be my prayer. It had been given into my control for a few minutes, and the only worthy use to which I could put it was to offer it up with a prayer for my people and all the desire of my heart that the prayer would be answered. The half-million souls with all their dreams were under my care then, and their acts were mine. So little are cities, and so little I found my worthiness that I could not hide my tears. Later I crossed to the height looking down on the cemetery, the world was silent save for the flaming heart of the city pulsing below, and reflecting the Flaming Heart above as the sun set. The woodpeckers did not fear me, and I sank slowly and deeply into God. I think that some day I shall know His wounds. I cannot understand why I was delivered from temptation at the moment that the city was put into my hands.
July 18.
... I bathed on the dunes on Wonder Island. The sun set tonight sacramentally just as it set that night at ---- when I failed to speak. Never had I felt stronger, but something held me back from telling him how the dearest wish of my life was that he should participate in the Holy Eucharist. The flame was in my hands to lay upon his heart, but something bade me wait. I distrusted it, and asked him to walk with me on the shore. The thunder of the tide and the moon were too strong. Why could I not have told him? We were silent for hours while his heart lay with the Titanic, and even his little daughter was quiet in the room.
July 19.
The stars are the dust rubbed off from human souls. "Dust unto dust thou shalt return." At the last judgment, they will fly together in an angelic hosting, and clothe once more the souls which moved in them, and our souls will rule their songs. Human suffering is the friction of angels making stars. ... I know now that the end of one's forty days is not complete knowledge, but only a clear indication of the road. The joy is in that, and also the sorrow. It is the direction given to the will, orders to be so carefully obeyed. This is the greatest discovery of all. Words do not reveal it. It is absolutely prosaic, though it is eternal beauty. But what I have written does not reflect it even faintly as it seems to me. Read Hello this afternoon. The freedom of the dunes this morning seemed to extend more than is usual. Later I read from Plato's "Symposium."
July 20.
... The proverbial symbol of impermanence is writing upon sand. What could be more gloriously permanent? To have one's message spelled out by singing planets, to write upon the stars. It is so that our songs have immortality. "Verba scripta manent" takes on a majestic significance. Are not joy and sadness the same? The only difference is one of rapidity. Sadness is made up of the long, slow, majestic chords of the song. It seems to me that when a wheel seems to cease motion, and finally attains a state of motionlessness, it is perhaps merely turning into a terrible speed which we cannot perceive. It is the turning of an hour-glass. When I am dead, I wish only my faults to be chronicled, for these alone have any value for the world. I have dreamt always of cycles of infinities. As a decimal always tends by evolution towards a number, so also we evolve toward an infinity. Yet at that goal another infinity starts, as another infinity starts in numbers,--the symbol of patience after all.
"Unto the man of yearning thought?And aspiration, to do nought?Is in itself almost an act,--?Being chasm-fire and cataract?Of the soul's utter depths unseal'd.?Yet woe to thee if once thou yield?Unto the act of doing nought!"
Read Hello and Elia. I am learning how to see in crowds. These past few days I have succeeded in withdrawing into life for long periods